Parade
by iDEALITYjUnctioN
Summary: When the slow parade went past and it felt soo good you knew it couldn't last. And all too soon the end is gonna come without a warning and you'd have to just go home. -Rob Thomas.
1. Chapter 1

Parade.

10 years.

Ludwig watched ten years being buried in the ground, wood cased cabinet in a silk lined coffin slowly lowered into the dirt. Silence that was hushing the grounds, broken only by strangled sobs and angry sniffles, despair and agony hanging like a drape over the graveyard. Over the crowd that had gathered, too many to fit under the huge tent, sobbing and sniffling, unable to tell the rain from salty tears.

He stood at the back, his hair and rented tux getting soaked and he had long lost feeling in his toes, fake leather shoes swimming and squelching on the wet grass. He wasn't crying.

The service had been long and emotional, the priest tearing up a little as he spoke of Feliciano's bright spirit and love for the world, of his paintings and his smile and the grand future he would have had in art and in cooking. How his beautiful personality brought everyone in, made everyone smile. Relatives had broken into fits of sobs, throwing themselves onto the coffin and crying out in Italian about the unfairness of the world, the cruelness of reality.

Schoolmates and acquaintances showed up for the preservice but had left by now, they had stood stony faced in the back with Ludwig, each one shedding a sympathetic tear or two, sharing their thoughts about death before herding themselves away to go write emotional poems about their personal issues. A life experience gained, and nothing more.

But Ludwig had stayed, grounding himself to the spot. Even now when relatives were huddling under black umbrellas and hunching down to waiting cars and taxi's, Ludwig stayed standing in the back. Nodding at those who nodding to him, shuffling out of the way of hysterical aunts and staggering cousins, wide and puffy-eyed with grief.

He stayed.

But he was not the only one.

_What a terrible tragedy, awful really. Too bad it wasn't the other one, really. _

_Feli was going so far, why wasn't it _him _instead._

_It should have been you! It shouldn't have been him, it should have been you!_

He sat on the last foldable, metal chair in the first row, eyes staring as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Deep brown eyes dull, the usual passion and ire lost, or dulled, in the rainy Tuesday morning.

For the first time in over an hour, Ludwig moved his aching joints and felt his socks squelch in the ground as he walked down the makeshift aisle created by the chairs, sitting down a chair away from the other guest, following his gaze in silence. Listening to the patter of the rain.

"I thought you might come, potato bastard."

Ludwig didn't move.

"Skipping school?" He chuckled, without humor. "How unlike you."

"I have no classes today." His voice was harsh, he had hardly spoken all day. "Are you still in school?"

He snorted "I graduated last year, dipshit. Just waiting on my Yale acceptance letter." Sarcasm dripped from his tongue and if Ludwig didn't know any better, he wouldn't notice any difference at all from those years in middle school and high school, growing up together.

"College isn't for everyone."

"Yeah, someone has to make the little end pieces on shoelaces."

"Aglets." Ludwig corrected, hating himself as soon as he said it. "It's called an aglet."

He waited for a beat before bursting into a fit of too-loud giggles, finally prying his eyes away from the coffin to look at him. His lips stretched into a grin, but his eyes still dull to the core. Lovino Vargas was not okay.

"It's just fucking like you to know that isn't it... Jesus." He sat back, slouching against his chair. The funeral organizers were starting to take down the tent, giving them pointed looks they both chose to ignore.

"Everyone should know that."

"Everyone should know that you have a fucking tree stuck up your ass." Lovino glared at a man folding the chair's around them. "College boy."

"If I'm college boy, you're aglet bitch."

Lovino snorted out a laugh, "God, college has made you an absolute _ass."_

"I learned from the best."

"Damn right."

Ludwig stood, not wanting to be here any longer, the tension was suffocating. "Do you want to get a coffee?"

"Only if it's a beer."

Ludwig shrugged, his lips turning upwards. "At 10:30?"

"The only time you need a beer." He countered and stood. The rain was heavier now, and Ludwig could tell Lovino's shoes were soaked too. All the way down to the non matching socks and too expensive shoes.

Ludwig wondered why they suddenly got along so well, without Feliciano there to calm the turbulent waters of their 'almost friendship' but he guessed it was out of necessity. Two outcasts; One who couldn't feel anything from music and found books more interesting than clubs and half naked girls and the other who chose to hate when everyone else loved to love.

Maybe it hurt more to be alone.

"You know," Lovino said as they slipped and skidded down the grassy path to the Volkswagen Ludwig's parents had bought him for his 20th birthday. "I still really hate you."

Maybe he, really, had no idea.

"I know."

* * *

Why I did this? Who knows... May be a sequel. I was just in a mood.

Enjoy anyway...


	2. Chapter 2

p style="font-family:  
BergamoStdRegular, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" Parade II/p 


	3. Chapter 3

Pittsburg was hot this time of year. The sun beat down against his neck making sweat bead down his shirt and back, turning cool and sticky before you even stepped inside. Ludwig stood in the heat with his hands in his pockets, his gaze staring out across the parking lot, filled with cars and trucks, POS's and nice mommy and daddy graduation gifts alike. It was a paradise of class difference and he hated it, but he hated the graduation ceremony even more.

The gym was stuffy and hot and his hands hurt from clutching that little piece of paper so tight, his diploma crumbled in his own hands. And what was it now? Useless.

But he knew where he was going.

The Volkswagen was a little rough, rougher than it was in highschool when it withstood the rain on a bleak, black umbrella worthy occasion. It withstood constant weekend trips and hoards of wrapped up food and painted furniture in it's trunk, back seat and passenger seat. It had been there for him, and now it was manhandled into submission. The best years of it's life had come and gone. Five years of _his _life rolling along with it.

But, today, he knew where he was going.

He made it home before the heat let up and drove right past it, rolling along the gravel paths and cracked pavements, the bikeriders shouting at each other in the summer heat and the mom's rolling past with babies in strollers and strapped precariously to their hips. He rolled on.

And stopped.

The house looked nicer, nicer by far. It had been painted; 'I'll fucking get around to it.' New windows and window frames; 'I'll get around to it.' The rickety blueish porch had been teared down and replaced with a wraparound cedar porch complete with two wicker chairs perched near the door and a glass table in between; 'The porch is fucking fine!' It looked better. By far.

"God, It's so American it's making me sick."

Ludwig smirked. Lovino hunched his body against his car, making it clang worriedly. "I told them to fucking fix it, not fuck it up to hell."

"They did hand over the cash."

Lovino snorted. "And their creativity appearently."

"Dressed to sell?"

"Damn right."

Ludwig finally stole a glance towards Lovino, catching sight of his longer hair, tucked behind his ears and the noticeable tan to his naturally olive skin. His body was still skinny but the muscle definition was definitely there, hiding taunt underneath his short sleeved shirt and baggy pants.

"How was Italy?"

"Full of fucking Italians." He snorted, his lips dragging upwards. "Fucking awesome."

"Did you get to Asia?"

"Eventually." He sighed. "First I took the 'thirty dollars a month' approach to backpacking in Europe. I can sleep on fucking knives in an avalanche."

"Spain?"

"Boring as fuck."

"France?"

"Some dude tried to stick a baguette down my pants."

"England?"

"Fucking _English!"_

"Germany?"

Lovino paused, his eyes tearing themselves away from the house to look at him. "Who knows?"

Ludwig threatened a smile but held it down. "I hear it's beautiful."

"Bull." Lovino tread carefully, not sure whether to hope beyond hope. "It's probably all meat on a rope." He paused. "And full of Germans."

Ludwig chuckled and they fell into silence all over again, the whoops and shouts of kids down the gravel road fizzling and dying in the heat of late afternoon. He could feel the heat from the car burn a stripe over the back of his leg and down his back. It was too hot, too humid, too suffocating and with Lovino so close it was like the cool air was just around the corner, just out of reach. That cold shower to scrape off all the humidity and pain and struggle to pull yourself together. He could've reached out and touched it's tousled hair and tanned vellum.

"I guess we won't know," Ludwig broke the humid silence, shattered it even as Lovino sagged. "Until we go."

He froze for all of five seconds before he laughed, hard and long into the shattering pain and hate and agony that weighed Ludwig down so much he was drowning. And suddenly they were both laughing, both laughing like they had nothing to lose, nothing to prove and the world didn't know that this would be the last time they were ever the same again.

Maybe they were finally brave enough to be with one another. Or at least, side by side, shoulder to shoulder against what they couldn't understand.

"You are a little fucking prick sometimes, college boy."

Or, maybe, they had no idea.

* * *

I hope this is the last part, God forbid I have to make a sequal to this shitty little thingy. But here it is, I hope you like it, please don't ask me for any more!


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